Stray bullets: A rain of terror City residents, especially kids, face fear in their streets.

May 29, 1992|By John Rivera | John Rivera,Staff Writer

It has happened to people sitting on their stoops or standing on street corners. It has happened to people in their homes. It has even happened to people attending church services.

Stray bullets are killing and injuring increasing numbers of innocent victims in many Baltimore neighborhoods.

And, more and more, those victims are children.

Last summer, the city was shocked when two children were killed by stray bullets and several others were wounded. Many fear the same thing will happen this summer.

This year, 14 children have been wounded by gunfire, according to statistics compiled by the Johns Hopkins Children's Center. Although many are the victims of accidental shootings, at least three of them were hit by stray bullets. And that's just the kids under 15.

Just Wednesday night, another child was hit. Five-year-old David Ferguson was struck in the right leg by a shotgun pellet while standing in a sixth-floor hallway at the Lexington Terrace Apartments in West Baltimore. He was lucky -- the injury was not life-threatening and David was released yesterday from the Johns Hopkins Children's Center.

David was standing in a nearby stairwell as two men were arguing. He was hit by a stray pellet when one man fired at the other with a sawed-off shotgun and missed, police said. Both men ran away, leaving the wounded boy in the hallway.

Two weeks ago, 2-year-old Kimberly Williams was shot while sitting on the steps of her East Baltimore rowhouse. The bullet, fired by a man shooting at someone at the other end of the block, passed behind her ear, breaking her jaw and front teeth before exiting through her upper lip. Kimberly spent about a week in the hospital, but doctors say she will require more surgery.

The girl's mother, Barbara Parker, is thankful to have Kimberly back home. But scars, both physical and emotional, remain.

"Her mouth is still sore. She can't open it. . . . And her smile is not the same," she said. "Ever since she's been home, she's been awake at night. You can't leave her. Somebody has to be with her all the time."

Ms. Parker said she was especially troubled that her daughter was shot right in front of her house, in broad daylight. Before, she had worried about her older children being out on the streets away from home. "You're scared something will happen to them and you're not going to be there," she said. But now she wonders if anyplace is safe.

Terrika Johnson, 5, was shot in the back on April 9 while she was standing with her mother at the corner of Greenmount Avenue and East Biddle Street. The bullet remains in her body. Her mother, Amanda Jacobs, said Terrika is reluctant to go outside and reacts with terror to the frequent sound of gunshots outside their house.

"She went outside one day and heard thunder and thought it was gunshots and started screaming," said Ms. Jacobs. She has tried unsuccessfully to obtain city housing so she can move out of what she considers a dangerous neighborhood.

The recent shootings are a bad portent for what lies ahead, especially with the bitter memory of last summer when two children, 6-year-old Tiffany Smith and 3-year-old Shanika Day, were killed about a month apart in West Baltimore.

Two others were wounded: Lakia S. Bradford, now 10, was shot in the chest and seriously wounded while walking to a church-run snowball stand in East Baltimore, and 4-year-old Quantae Johnson was hit by a stray bullet on Sept. 7 as he stood in his grandmother's East Baltimore rowhouse.

Lakia still has a bullet lodged in her chest, about an inch from her heart. She suffers from nightmares, and she and her mother, Jennifer Queen, have both been seeing a therapist to cope with the trauma.

"It troubles me a lot. Whoever did this to her, they're probably looking at me everyday. Every time I walk out of this house or walk in, they're looking at me," Ms. Queen said. "It's a feeling that makes me want to take my children and move way on out, in the county or something. But you can't run away from reality. It could be the same out there."